


Five Times Kaidan Fixed James' Phone (and one time James fixed his)

by BardofHeartDive



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Customer Service & Tech Support, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 06:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: Kaidan is an engineering student at Normandy University doing his work-study at the IT Help Desk. James is a fellow student who has a lot of problems with his phone and Kaidan is happy to help.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisnewjoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisnewjoe/gifts).



> Many many thanks to the amazing mods AceKingQueen and keita52, for running this exchange time after time, my fantastic beta-reader RockPaperbackScissors, for giving me awesome feedback and helping me improve the story and my writing, and my #1 Cheerleader bioticfox, for always encouraging and motivating me.

The first time was a Thursday, four minutes before closing on the busiest day Kaidan had worked at the Normandy University IT Help Desk.

The e-mail announcing the server switch had gone out two weeks before, then the week before, then every day for the three days before, and still no one bothered to actually do the update until they suddenly couldn’t access their Normandy mail. The desk had seen more traffic that day than the rest of the previous semester combined and Kaidan wanted nothing more than to go home and go to sleep. He was packing up in the break room, halfway through pulling on his jacket, when he heard a voice call from the front: 

“Hello?”

He seriously considered turning the straggler away but then he sighed and answered, “I’ll be right out!” He put on his best customer service smile but left his jacket on and carried his bag out. Every ounce of irritation drained when he saw the customer waiting for him. 

The man wasn’t quite as tall as him but much more muscular, his T-shirt stretched tight against the muscles of his chest, shoulders, and back. There were several scars on his face, the largest running across his nose and cheek, and part of a tattoo peeking out from the right side of his collar, black ink stark against the warm brown of his skin. His hair was black, styled into a short mohawk, and there was a bit of matching scruff on his jaw. 

Kaidan reminded himself it was rude to stare and managed, “Hi.”

“Hey.” The man’s dark eyes swept over him, immediately taking in his coat and bag. “You still open?”

“Yeah.” Kaidan set his bag down on the desk. “Yeah, we’re open. What can I do for you? E-mail update?”

“No. Well, not exactly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, revealing just a little more of the tattoo and Kaidan couldn’t help but wonder what the whole thing looked like, how far down and around it went. “I can’t get my phone to connect to Normandy Net at all. Not just e-mail - admissions office, bursar and financial aid, course pages, even the athletics boards.”

“Have you tried it from a desktop?”

“Just a guest log-in when I registered this morning.” 

Kaidan eyed him over his glasses; classes had started almost two weeks ago. “This morning?”

“I was deployed. We were supposed to get back before the semester started but things, uh . . . ran long, I guess you could say.”

“And they didn’t create an account for you at the office?” 

“I don’t think so?”

“That's probably it.” Kaidan moved toward one of the computers and started it up, motioning for the man to take a seat. “You can’t connect through mobile without activating your account and linking the app. You can do it using the public Wi-Fi until the drop deadline but after that you have to go through the intranet.” He had to lean over him to opened the sign-in page and did his best not to notice how good his aftershave smelled. “Fill that out, then we’ll restart everything and see if it works.”

It was a quarter past 9 before they finished up but Kaidan had never been happier to stay late.


	2. Chapter 2

The second time when was when Kaidan learned his name.

It was almost a month later and he had spent the first few days stewing over the fact that he hadn’t at least introduced himself. He’d hoped to see him around the campus, browsing at the bookstore, studying at the library, but he never did. Then the semester picked up and Kaidan found himself buried in his own classes, too busy to dwell on the missed opportunity.

Until he was catching up on his calculus homework during a slow day at work and looked up to see the man approaching the Help Desk.

“Long time no see.”

“I’m Kaidan,” he blurted and immediately realized how ridiculous he sounded. The man just smiled, which should have eased the embarrassment but for some reason only made it worse.

“Vega.” He stopped and corrected himself, “James.”

“James,” Kaidan repeated. “Uh, what can I do for you?”

“It’s my phone,” James said, laying it on the desk in front of him.

“Not connecting again?”

“No, that’s been fine. I’m just not getting alerts. Like, we got an extension on a paper and the professor announced it on the course page and I can see it if I log in on my laptop but it didn’t come through on my phone.”

“Huh. Okay, let’s take a look.” He came around the counter to stand next to James for a better view. “Go ahead and open your account.”

James reached across and typed in his password, his hand brushing Kaidan’s as he did. It was a brief contact, and feather-light, but Kaidan could swear he felt sparks. Swallowing hard, he started navigating through the pages.

“Looks like the app set to sync . . . you’ve got plenty of storage space . . . hrmmm . . . ” He pulled off his glasses, slowly twirling them by one of the ends. Tiny reflections formed on the bright blue frames, then spun away with the movement. “What about on the phone itself.”

“Settings?”

“Yeah. Then Programs and Apps.” He scrolled through the lists until he found what he was looking for. “There! With your current permissions you have to manually approve syncing. All you need to do is allow auto-sync for Normandy Net and that should fix it.”

“Mind if we make sure it worked before I go?”

“Sure. I mean, no. I mean, I don’t mind at all.”

James laughed but it turned into a frown as soon as the program opened. He turned the screen toward Kaidan, showing no new messages in the course chat. 

“Try restarting,” he said. “Always try restarting.”

“Ah, yeah. Okay . . . ” The screen went dark in his hands, then flashed back to life as it turned back on. He set it down on the counter, the programs starting up again. “You know I was thinking - ” James was interrupted by a chorus of chimes as the notifications flooded in. “Looks like that did it. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“Yeah, but still. I, uh, appreciate it. Tech’s not really my specialty so it’s nice to know I have back up. So to speak.”

“Well, I’m -  _ we’re _ \- happy to help. Give us a call any time.”

“I’ll do that.”


	3. Chapter 3

The third time James did, in fact, call.

Kaidan was lucky that he managed to take it as Tali was also working and she had an inexplicable love for handling the phones. But she was already walking another customer through an antivirus scan so it fell to him to answer. 

“Normandy University, IT Help Desk. This is Kaidan.”

“Hey. It’s James.” 

Kaidan had recognized his voice at the first word but stopped himself from saying as much. “Hi. More phone issues?”

“How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess. What’s it doing this time?”

“I’m actually not sure it’s the phone. I have to do this worksheet for kinesiology and I downloaded it from the course page and finished it but whenever I try to upload it to the drop box the answers are blank.”

“Sounds like a saving issue.”

“It says it’s saved.” James half growled, half sighed in frustration. “I’m in the document now and the answers are there.”

“Does it say where?”

“Where?”

“Where it’s saved.”

“ . . . on my phone?”

Kaidan would have felt bad for laughing if James hadn’t been as well. Even through the line, the sound sent a rush of warmth through Kaidan. He hoped he didn’t sound too eager when he suggested:

“It might be easier if you came in.”

“Can’t. I’m on drill this weekend.”

Kaidan thought there was a hint of disappointment in his voice but while he was trying to figure out if he was just hearing what he wanted to hear, he noticed Tali out of the corner of his eye. She had finished up with her person and was making no attempt to hide that she was eavesdropping. Her attention made him self-conscious so cleared his throat and said,

“Alright, let’s see if I can walk you through it. Go to the Normandy Net course page, like you’re going to submit it again. When the page pops up, there should be an icon on the left that says Attach From. That should give you a drop-down menu and one of them should be Recent.”

“There are two Kinesiology Worksheets.”

“Pick the top one. That’ll be the one you edited most recently.”

“Got it. Let me just check that the answers are there . . . ” There was a small whoop from the other end. “They are! What would I do without you?”

“I - ” Kaidan’s mouth was suddenly dry. “I’m sure there’s some technician there who could have done just as well. Or better.”

“Not possible. I need to go, though. PT in five. Thanks again.”

The phone clicked as James hung up and Kaidan placed his end down on the receiver. When he turned around Tali was watching him expectantly.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“No one. Some guy who needed help finding a file.”

She eyed him but didn’t press the issue.


	4. Chapter 4

The fourth time Kaidan wasn’t there.

He’d felt the start of a migraine the previous afternoon and by the time he made it home after class he was hoping his head would explode to relieve the pressure building behind his right eye. He surprised himself by managing to text Tali that he wouldn’t be in the next day and through a combination of luck, exhaustion, and heavy medication managed to sleep through until the following evening and did make it in for his shift the day after.

Tali was starting the routine updates on the school’s desktops but she stopped when he arrived and followed him into the break room.

“Feeling better?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe while he put his things in his locker.

“Yeah, managed to head it off at the pass,” he answered. “And, anyway, I wasn't going to make you do the updates by yourself. Not a chance.”

“Then let’s get to it.” She gave him a friendly bump with her shoulder as they went back to the front. “If you want to start with central, I’ll help you as soon as I’m done with the testers.”

Kaidan felt like he was getting the better end of the deal - the handful of computers used for supervised testing had a number of extra programs that were notoriously finicky - but Tali was already working on one so he didn’t argue.

“I had an interesting case yesterday,” she said after a few minutes of amicable silence. “This guy came in having some trouble with his phone.”

“Oh yeah?” Kaidan asked, more focused on Station 6 than her story.

“Yeah. I used that reverse-search trick you showed me. Worked like a charm.”

“I’m glad it did the trick.”

“I don’t remember his name but I’m pretty sure you know him . . . tall, tattooed, built like a tank. Hopeless with all things electronic but nice enough.”

That got Kaidan’s attention, a mix of embarrassment and excitement spreading through his chest. “James?”

“I knew it!” Tali shot up from the station she was working on and practically crowed. “He’s the guy, isn’t he? The one who needed help finding a file last week. He asked about you.”

“What about me?”

“Oh, just how you’d been, where you were.” Tali had returned to her work but was still grinning ear to ear. “I think he likes you.”

“It’s his phone,” Kaidan sputtered, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “He’s probably not even interested.”

“Hah! He’s interested. He asked for you, _by name_. I bet the phone is just a rouse to stop by. You should ask him out.”

“I should . . . that’s not . . . he isn’t - ”

He was saved from having to finish the thought by a customer walking in but he made a point of keeping busy for the rest of the day.


	5. Chapter 5

The fifth time was outside and he wasn’t on the clock.

It was his classes-only day and he was heading through the quad, past the intramural field, when he noticed James peel off from a group throwing a football around. His shirt, an army tank top that left nothing to the imagination, was soaked with sweat and his face was flushed from the sun and exertion. He jogged over to the sideline and took a drink from his water bottle, then fished his phone out of his bag. He saw Kaidan when he glanced up from checking it and broke into a wide grin. It made Kaidan’s heart flutter.

Before he could stop himself turned toward the field. James started toward him as well, meeting him halfway.

“Hey. I missed you the other day.”

Instead of responding, he said, “There’s something wrong with your phone.”

James raised his eyebrows but Kaidan did his best to ignore it, knowing if he paid it too much attention he would lose his nerve. 

“It doesn’t have my number in it.”

He plucked the phone out of James’ hand and opened the contacts. He could feel the heat of a blush rising up his neck, into his ears, and over his nose as he entered his number then turned and barely managed to keep from sprinting away. He hadn’t even made it halfway across the field before his phone chimed the text message alert but it took the rest of the walk back to the Engineering Building for him to work up the nerve to check it.

“Hey. This is James. Can I take you out this weekend?”


	6. Chapter 6

Going out ended up being staying in.

James cooked, a veritable banquet, with spiced and roasted pork as the main course, enough sides to feed an army, and cinnamon rice pudding for dessert. They talked through dinner then moved to the couch, curled up with homemade café con leche, close enough that Kaidan was sure James could hear his heart pounding.

“My favorite thing, huh?” James asked, leaning in and Kaidan was both thrilled and terrified of the possibility that he might kiss him. But then he pulled back and turned his mug in his hands and stared at the coffee in the bottom of it and Kaidan was left reeling at the sudden emptiness around him. “Your glasses.”

“What about my glasses?”

“The way you . . . mess with them. You look down over the top of them when you’re teasing. Or skeptical. You take them off when you’re working and if you get stuck you start spinning them around. They slip down your nose but you only push them back up when you’re nervous.” 

Kaidan froze with his index finger still on the bridge of the frames. James was grinning at him and the mirth in his eyes gave Kaidan the courage to add, “Or excited.”

“Excited, huh?”

James leaned in again but this time Kaidan leaned too. Thrill overtook terror, especially when James’ eyes fluttered shut, but just before their lips touched Kaidan’s phone rang, blasting the Star Wars theme from across the room.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed, scrambling for his jacket and searching through the pockets. “I don’t know who would be calling. Especially this late. I’m . . . uh, sorry!”

He finally fished it out and turned around to realize James had come with him and was now standing chest to chest with him. He leaned in and gave him a quick peck of a kiss, immediately stunning Kaidan silent.

“ _ This _ I can fix,” James said. 

He turned the phone off and went in for another - longer - kiss.


End file.
